At Harbour
by DarkHorseBlueSky
Summary: Amethyst can't find her packed snacks, her little brother was beamed up in a UFO, and an alien thinks she's the most gorgeous thing on this side of the Milky Way Galaxy. [Amedot human AU — well...partially. Crossposted on AO3 and Wattpad!]
1. Officer - 0000

**Title from the song "At Harbor" by Great States.**

 **Idea from...undetermined.**

* * *

Bed unmade, room slightly cluttered, no signs of a fight. Front door open and unlocked, but bike in the shed. No belongings missing. No note. Not a person to speak of who would think to kidnap a well-known and beloved child from a secluded beach house, good relationships with his one living relative and guardians, no suspicious activity reported by any of his peers. Nothing from local hospitals, businesses, or shelters. Only one report of anything out of the ordinary, but that one was most likely a coincidence.

The data was nearly conclusive — thirteen-year-old Steven Quartz Universe had vanished into thin air.

Officer Esther Ben-David set the crisp new file on her desk, folded her hands, and looked up at the four bewildered people who had taken up residence in the police station for nearly the entire day. The boy's father, a sunburnt car wash owner whose years hadn't treated him well. The guardians, a black woman with mirrored sunglasses from the fire department (Officer Ben-David knew her) and a skinny, redhaired white woman wringing her hands. The older sister, a chubby seventeen-year-old with wildly dyed hair. Only the girl, hunched in a separate chair by the door, failed in meeting the officer's eyes.

"I'm sorry," said Officer Ben-David sincerely. The next words, cold and professional, felt awkward in her mouth. "Until we can conduct further investigations, we have nothing more to tell you. But I promise that we are doing all we can and will contact you immediately if anything is found."

The father — born Greg Bailey according to the file, legally changed name to Greg Universe in the 80's — flinched as if she had raised her hand. Of the four, he seemed to be the most aware of the situation's severity. Though the two guardians seemed shaken, they were more in shock than anything, as if they wanted to think that they were in a dream and everything was really okay; still in that denial stage. Mr. Universe glanced at them before speaking.

"Anything?" he repeated, childlike. Officer Ben-David nodded.

"Yes. Now, you folks had best be getting home. It's late, and if your child is out there of his own will, he might come back at this time."

She said it with as much hope as possible to fit in such a bleak sentence, but still, none of them seemed to believe. The three adults did that adult thing where they agreed automatically and got their things together to leave, sounding cheerful enough and still significantly depressed. The teenage girl was more transparent. She got up, but as her companions filed out of the room, she turned back to Officer Ben-David. Probably mad about the dream still.

"I know what I saw," the girl protested. "I wanna think it's a dream, but what if it wasn't? It felt _real_."

Yup, still mad about the dream. Officer Ben-David sighed and leaned forward on her desk. "Look, darlin', I know you're worried about your brother, but I don't know if your account has any weight with our detectives. I've told you this."

"You think I'm crazy."

"Well...I think you might just be jumping to conclusions, that's all. Perhaps it was some sort of subconscious suggestion, as in, your brain picked up on something and turned it into a dream. Either way, I and my coworkers have decided that it'd probably be best to investigate the hard evidence first. I really am sorry," she added when the girl turned her head. A sulky pause passed between them.

"Okay. Thanks," the girl said at last. Then she followed the adults.

As soon as the door closed behind her, Officer Ben-David's eyes shot to the clock — fifteen past eight, long past her time to split. Moving almost robotically, she began to pack up her things, her mind darting between her cold coffee and the ache in her right arm and all the things that she normally dwelt on after a long day on duty. And tonight, one new thing joined them, one name: Steven Quartz Universe.

Distracted, she dropped her keys and from habit picked it up by the keychain. It was a cheap trinket from some gas station in Toledo, a joking gift from Eli during their move to the East Coast. The years had taken their toll on the thing. Still, the little plastic UFO endured on her key ring, and as worn as it was, she could still make out the outline of green alien in the cockpit.

"Cute," she murmured to herself, and began to wonder what Eli had made for dinner.


	2. Amethyst - 0001

"I can't believe you," spat Pearl the second they stepped in the house. "Talking nonsense about aliens and ships in the sky? While Steven is _missing_? Amethyst — Amethyst, look at me when I'm talking to you!"

"I don't need to listen to you," Amethyst shot back. By this point she didn't even have to go through the routine — _you're not my mom, I'm leaving in a month anyway, I've got just as much right to make decisions in this house as you or Garnet._ But she was too tired for all that.

"The cop said to tell her what I knew, so I did. And it's not nonsense, you saw that thing on the beach, I'm not — "

"Amethyst!" Garnet's voice cut through her rant. "This isn't the time. Go to your room."

Startled, Amethyst's words tapered off. If anyone, she had expected Garnet to believe her. Garnet respected her, asking her opinion as an _equal_ before anything. But she looked up at the taller woman, tried to see past the mirrored sunglasses, and turned to Pearl's equally furious expression, and in a bitter, twisted part of her, she knew they wouldn't take her seriously. Like that cop hadn't.

Biting her bottom lip, Amethyst forced out one last glare to Pearl and Garnet before storming up the stairs to her attic room. Messy as always, and her notebook computer took up her pillow space, but she still dropped herself onto her bed and stared out the hexagonal window that took up most of her wall. She could see the beach from here; that hadn't changed in her "dream", it was the same window through which everything had unfolded.

That day had been hot and windless, so in the light of the full moon, Amethyst could still clearly make out the only trace of Steven's disappearance. A perfect diamond blazed in the center of the beach, a clear circle in its center — respectively, the abnormal pattern of the UFO's underside and that column of light that had swallowed her brother.

She had taken a picture of it earlier that morning and showed the cops, but obviously, they hadn't thought anything of it. They didn't understand that in her "dream", she had watched the same mark blow out from underneath the ship.

Steven was as good as gone like this. No one would believe her.

Not tired enough to fall asleep, Amethyst opened her laptop, put in her headphones, and logged into Tumblr. Seven new messages from Ronaldo, ugh. He must've seen her post about the diamond in the sand (captioned just "wtf is this") . From the looks of it, he had also reblogged it and added a page-long commentary, including grainy photos that gave her nothing new and also something about polymorphic sentient rocks. It helped that someone else had seen what she saw and didn't think she was crazy, but it didn't help that it was _Ronaldo._ She ignored the messages.

The same dashboard of strange memes, cat videos, art, and poorly edited fanfiction spun past her eyes for a half hour, but it just didn't have the same appeal when she knew she was reblogging it to an empty crowd. Five thousand followers and it made all the difference when one was missing — she saw Steven's blog a couple times but all of them were tagged as from the queue. He hadn't made a new post since yesterday night.

Frustrated, Amethyst closed her laptop and leaned against the window, her forehead pressing against the cool glass. It was a clear night marked by the same constellations; she knew the stars from this window as well as she knew the window itself. She couldn't remember how often she'd wondered what was out there, what lay beyond their atmosphere, what creatures roved the galaxy in pods that left diamond marks in the sand outside her house…

Amethyst sat up as the last thought crossed her mind, not without cause. That thing on the horizon wasn't a star. Too big, too bright. Breathless, she scrambled around her bedside table for a pair of binoculars and aimed them towards the glowing dot — now clearly recognizable as a horizontal ellipse, hovering over the sea, glowing yellow on the bottom. Too blurry to see past the front windows, but still recognizable.

The UFO was still here.

She sent out a message in the group chat first, asking who was available to cause mischief tonight (read by Sour Cream, Jenny, and Buck almost immediately). Then, bracing herself, she opened Ronaldo's messages on Tumblr, ignored their contents, and began to type in a reply.

 _hey listen do you know how to make a crop circle_

 _i think i know how to get steven back_


	3. Amethyst - 0010

Hours later, as the moon dropped low in the sky, four young people stood at the edge of a cornfield as one perched on the roof of a barn above them. From this height, Amethyst was allowed a full view of the night's handiwork.

"Does it look authentic?" Ronaldo yelled up to Amethyst. Obviously he'd been the most excited for this project, having brought exact blueprints, measuring tape, boards to flatten the grain stalks, and "stealth clothes" (a.k.a. a dorky black sweatsuit and beanie).

However, looking at the finished product, Amethyst couldn't help but be grateful for Ronaldo's help. The crop circle — rather, crop diamond — would have been impossible for herself and the Cool Kids alone. Even Amethyst, who had stared for hours at the original, could forget that this was a forgery.

But she still wasn't sure.

"Yeah," Amethyst called down from her vantage point, lowering her binoculars. "For them, though, I dunno."

On the ground, Jenny gave a short laugh. "You're a riot, girl," she said. "You don't actually think this is real...right?"

"Of course this is real!" Ronaldo spun around and folded his arms. "Steven's missing and this is the only way to communicate with the things that took him!" — as if it were obvious.

It didn't seem enough. Amethyst wasn't sure how she felt about the only person believing her being Ronaldo. "I know it sounds crazy, but it's the only lead we've got and no one's takin' it except me. If it doesn't work, then it doesn't work. But I'm not giving up until something does."

Jenny, Sour Cream, and Buck exchanged glances. Then Buck said to Amethyst and Ronaldo, "That's cool I guess. And this was fun. But it's a little late, even for us."

"Yeah, my mom wanted me to help her with her art show tomorrow," Sour Cream put in. Jenny glanced at her phone.

"You mean today. It's, like, 4 A.M. Listen, Ammy," Jenny raised her voice again for Amethyst, who hadn't moved from the top of the barn, "it'd be great to stick around and watch for the aliens, but I mean, it's a little weird, but we still love you I swear! It's just..."

Amethyst hardly heard her after "listen". Bitter, hot anger pressed against her chest. "No, I understand," she tried to keep her voice from dipping into complete sarcasm, and failed. "Do what you have to, guys. I'm totally happy sitting here on my own, don't worry one — "

"You won't be alone!" came Ronaldo's voice, so close that Amethyst nearly fell off the barn roof. He sat an uncomfortable two feet away, breathing hard but smiling. Amethyst glared at him, then turned back to her three friends still on the ground.

"Amethyst," said Buck, "we don't mean anything against you. A'ight maybe it is a little weird. But you're still cool."

"Me and my mom could drop by snacks or wireless chargers or something," offered Sour Cream.

"We're really sorry," finished Jenny. She looked at least a little like she meant it.

They left.

Amethyst wanted so badly to yell after them, but what would she say? What could she prove? She couldn't be mad at them. They'd taken out enough time for her as it was — she looked out over the field of crushed, patterned stalks, that symbol — this thing that meant probably nothing. They'd come here for her half-assed plan. For her hopelessness. Her escapism.

"Is that what I'm doing?" she asked Ronaldo, not expecting a real answer. "Avoiding the real problem?"

She ignored the answer she got.

Her phone had a bad signal in this wasteland so the hours until sunrise were one sided and bizarre, with Ronaldo discussing conspiracy and Amethyst thinking of anything but. Morning came in dew and soft lilac bands across the sky, with just the faintest flash of yellow on the horizon. A hopeless part of her thought that it was leaving. Ronaldo said that it was simply retreating above the atmosphere to hide during the day. Once it winked out of sight, by the time the sun enveloped the land in liquid orange light, they decided to retreat home.

Amethyst only managed five hours of good sleep, her dreams plagued with turbulent worries of tractor beams and Steven's voice, crying out from shadows she couldn't claw through. The rest of the day was spent mindlessly drawing stuff she didn't finish, hiding from Pearl, and trying hopelessly to begin her list of what to bring to college. (She probably wouldn't get any of the packing done until a couple days before she had to leave, anyway.)

When the sun drew a thumb's width from the horizon, she repacked her alien-hunting things and prepared to set out once more. Sleeping bag, bug spray, pepper spray, hat, flashlight, snacks, water bottle, phone, phone charger, Swiss army knife, baseball bat, extra rope, duct tape, car keys, her sketchbook in case she got bored.

Not exactly combat gear. Who knew how Steven's kidnappers were armed, but Amethyst couldn't help but think that she was probably screwed regardless.

 _It's probably plasma guns,_ a pessimistic part of her added as she stuffed a blue plastic tarp into her backpack. She yawned and made a note to slip some of Garnet's Red Bull.

Sipping the energy drink and hoping she didn't find news crews or curious farmers all around her crop circle, Amethyst drove back out into the countryside. She'd be alone tonight (it was "Grease Day" at the fry shop). That was fine by her, but she decided to park and watch from inside the barn just to be safe, and maybe keep warm because the night was cooler. She shivered in her crop top.

Amethyst parked in the open door of the Universe barn, unpacked her supplies, and sunk down onto her sleeping bag with her hoodie pulled tight over her shoulders. There was one thing she hadn't accounted for, something that made her very angry — she couldn't find her snacks. She actually considered dropping by the nearest convenience store to pick up a couple bags of gummy worms or something, then looked at the sky and dismissed the idea. The sun had long since sunk below the horizon and stars were beginning to emerge again. The UFO might come back while she was gone.

Her phone buzzed. A text, from Ronaldo: _Wish I could be there. Tonight's the night, I know it! Try to get as much evidence as you can!_ \- with an alien emoji and a yellow diamond.

Tonight would be the night. Amethyst sighed, wishing it was that easy to be optimistic, and opened her sketchbook.

Either way, she knew she'd regret this.


	4. Amethyst - 0011

When the thing came, it wasn't hard to spot, even for someone who'd fallen asleep.

In hindsight, Amethyst was kind of embarrassed about it, but in her defense, she had only received four and a half hours of sleep and she kinda hated Red Bull. Made her have to pee like crazy. She couldn't remember how or when she'd nodded off, so it wasn't like there was anything she could have done to prevent it; one second she'd been scrolling Snapchat, the next she was curled on her sleeping bag and a very loud strip of light was searing her eyes.

The light was from above and mostly blocked by the barn roof, save a few dazzling stripes through the gaps. The noise was like static, feedback, and a jet engine all in one. Her first thought was _hey, maybe it is just a jet or something, nothing to worry about, absolutely no alien invaders above this barn_ but then the light source moved just enough in front of the open barn door that she could make out a glowing yellow diamond on its flat underside.

Her breath hitching in her throat, Amethyst scrambled to her feet, snatched up her backpack, and ducked behind the barn wall. This was it. This, the same ship that had taken her brother, bright and real and hovering not forty feet from her, a spotlight sweeping across the field. With trembling hands she adjusted her snapback hat, made sure her sneakers were ready to run —

And stopped in her tracks because she had no idea what to do.

It seemed like the sort of thing she _should_ know, having had all this time to prepare, but really she'd never thought she'd come this far. _Guess I'll just cross the bridges as I get to them,_ she shrugged and pulled her hood over her hat. On the ship, a hole appeared in the spotlight, through which a shining green sphere popped out into the air.

 _And I've immediately gotten to them,_ thought Amethyst, and reached into her backpack for her weapons.

A coil of rope in one hand, the baseball bat sticking from her backpack, and her Swiss army knife in her pocket, she abandoned the cover of the barn and plunged into the field. She knew it was exactly twenty-two steps through the abandoned stalks to reach the west corner of the crop diamond and stopped there, crouching low as the ship's green patrol marble floated down to earth. More specifically in the octagonal center, around which were four points of untouched field to cage it in.

"Gotcha," Amethyst grinned.

She stepped gingerly out into the aisle of crushed stalks, her feet dancing around the crunchier ones as she took her rope in two hands and began to fasten its end into a loop. Three years ago, she reflected, Pearl and Garnet had sent her to a "special" two-month summer camp in Texas to "burn off her energy", or more accurately, to eat powdered food and kiss girls behind trees and go on ten-mile hikes and establish daily fights with other campers. She'd come back with muscles, a new ear piercing, an altered sexuality, and some hella lasso-throwing skills.

If she'd only known that some of those would actually come in _handy,_ then maybe she wouldn't have complained so much about it.

At first she couldn't decide whether she should draw the marble towards her by making a lot of noise or sneaking up on it and risking having it leave before she got to it. Past the noises of the night, she could clearly make out an uncanny, artificial shifting and crunching as it moved around the center, and as she drew closer through the stalks of wheat and her heart began to pound faster, she decided on the second option. Safer that way.

She could see the thing now, big enough that she could probably fit inside, translucent and liquid beyond its surface, and hovering on seven conical feet. It didn't appear to have a front or back, so sneaking up on it would be difficult. It took a ceaseless, whirring path around the edge of the clearing, away from Amethyst, and a perfect ten feet from her nudged at the stalks as if checking that they would give way.

 _Oh, no you don't,_ Amethyst thought and grasped her rope. Just as she'd done a thousand times, she adjusted the loop to account for the size of the marble thing, lifted the lasso and spun it until she felt the knot just barely slipping. _Perfect._

Honestly, she hadn't expected to really catch the robot, maybe just get its attention. She hadn't practiced for a while because lassoing was kind of a useless skill on the East Coast. But she'd always been a natural and she had luck on her side, as her counselors had said (not that she listened to them anyway) and now, she watched her rope whip around the circumference of the marble. Almost whooping in the thrill, she pulled the noose tight and the robot jerked back.

From the hovering ship above, a brighter light cracked to life and caused Amethyst to wince from the intensity, but so long as she kept her head down, her hat and hood protected her. The lasso on the thrashing robot was quickly slipping, so she abandoned her hiding place, pulled her baseball bat from her backpack, and charged into the open — and, okay, maybe she also yelled a little. It helped.

"What — did you do — to my BROTHER?!" she cried, flying at the robot with the bat.

With all her strength, she brought the aluminum weapon down on the marble. And she got no results; the bat bounced back just as fast as she'd swung it, very closely missing her head and sporting a scary dent. Amethyst stumbled back and lost hold of the rope, and the robot pushed past her to the focused spotlight of the ship.

Its conical feet lifted up and disappeared into its sides, and it locked into the beam of light. Breathless, Amethyst threw herself at it one last time, one hand gripping at the noose still tight around the robot's body, the other and her feet hugging as much of its circumference as she could get.

 _I'm coming for you, Steven._

They rose together, into the dazzling light, away from Earth and the field and everything that Amethyst knew.


	5. Officer - 0100

Officer Esther Ben-David drove into work tired. Again.

Apparently, Zhang had gone home sick from bad fast food and the Universe boy's guardians had a new problem. In addition to not being able to find the kid with the jewel on his stomach, someone else was gone as a reported result. Therefore, this was Esther's job by default — even if she hadn't slept for twenty-six hours, even if Dea had her martial arts tournament tomorrow and Esther had promised to see her fourteen-year-old daughter kick the crap out of people. But duty called.

And it called her immediately to a disused farm property in the south end of the county, where news crews and curious civilians had begun to flock.

Taking a swig of coffee, she pulled up the gravel drive, parked on the outskirts of the mess, and gathered her gear. The first place she went from there was the barn. Nelson was already here, and passed her a condescending look as she approached — just last month, he had been chosen as the new chief of the county department, and held it over her head. Everyone knew _why_ Nelson had the power when Esther had been clear in line for the position, as the more experienced and educated officer, but nothing could be done about it.

"Hey, sweetheart, why don't you talk to the witnesses," Nelson drawled as she approached him. "They're hysterical. Leave the hard evidence to us."

 _Too bad we're both cops, or I'd push you off a high place,_ Esther thought.

"Yes, sir," she managed instead. She made sure, as she walked away and pulled a notepad from her pocket, to flash her gold wedding band in Nelson's direction. Just as a reminder.

Yawning, she turned the corner of the barn to the witnesses — the two guardians, a baby-faced young man she recognized from the small town's fry shop, and three bewildered teens — who were sitting on a haystack in varying states of distress. The older guardian, Garnet, gripped a cell phone tight enough to break it.

As soon as she rounded the corner, the young fry man jumped up. "Officer, something supernatural happened here tonight," he blurted, but she put up her hand and turned to Garnet and Pearl.

"I'm sure you've made some conclusions of your own," she said politely, "but I'm required to speak with those who saw the victim last. Ma'am — " (she could never remember what to do when there were multiple ma'ams, but this wasn't the first time the two women had had to do this) " — I need you to tell me everything you know."

Garnet glanced at Pearl, who was bent over her lap as if sick, but then Pearl shook her pale orange head. "Well," the petite woman began, her voice wobbling, "yesterday — or — two days ago — when Steven went missing, Monday, that is...you heard her stories. Going on all about aliens and the like."

Esther jotted down Monday's date and nodded. "Yes, continue."

"Well...she left that night and didn't tell us that she had until she returned the next morning, and didn't mention where. I suppose I should have asked, but she still seemed upset about Steven and I didn't know how to approach her. She slept most of the day, so I suppose she must have been up all last night. I only got back at eight because I was putting up Steven's signs, and I made a dinner for Amethyst, and went up to check on her, but she wasn't in her room. Her car wasn't in the garage either, so I reasoned that she must have gone out again. I told Garnet and we tried calling her, but she didn't pick up."

"The service is very poor out here," put in Garnet, and Esther nodded in affirmation as she noted that too.

Pearl continued, folding her thin hands in her lap. "We...we tried contacting her friends next, these three young people. Ronaldo showed up later. They told me that Amethyst has been visiting the barn, so we drove down and...she wasn't here. Just her car and a sleeping bag."

"Do you know why she's been visiting this place?" asked Esther.

"Um...ma'am, we do," said one of the teens timidly, a pretty black girl with big gold earrings. "Last night she called us up and wanted to make a crop circle, to find her brother."

"We didn't think it would, like…" added one boy.

"...That it was legit," finished the shorter one. Esther frowned.

"What do you mean by 'legit'?"

The fry man — apparently, Ronaldo — cleared his throat and stood up again a little too fast. "What this young lady means is that there is something strange about this case," he relayed, clearing his throat with all the zeal of a new recruit ready to beat up bad guys. "There's something...unnatural. Two nights ago, when Steven Quartz Universe went missing, Amethyst and I observed an interesting phenomenon over the beach. From the town, I saw it as a yellow-green glow and a bright flash, and it left a diamond-shaped mark exactly like the one in that field — which is a replica. We made it to possibly draw the unidentified vessel back to this location, giving us an opportunity to contact the beings who probably kidnapped Amethyst's brother."

Esther sighed, but on the inside because she wasn't that mean. She didn't like to think this way, but it was pretty clear what might have happened. Local girl gets ideas about aliens, tells all her friends that she's camping alone somewhere, someone takes advantage of the knowledge. If she'd posted it on her blog or other social media, even worse. That would have to be her next area of investigation, but Ronaldo's voice was getting more excited and she couldn't stop him now.

"There were no results last night when I was with her," Ronaldo continued, "but tonight I believe there were. Unfortunately, I couldn't come with this time, but when I was taking out the trash I witnessed another green light from this direction — and when I checked Amethyst's Snapchat story, we found...well, it might be better for you to just see it yourself."

The officer's attention had been on Ronaldo, so she was surprised when Garnet stood up and handed her the phone she had been holding. "I can't figure out how to save a video. You will just have to play the whole story," said Garnet quietly.

Confused, Esther opened the story named _Amethyst_ and clicked past a few bored selfies and video clips of a pink cat. When she reached a snap seemingly taken inside the barn, Garnet said, "There," and Esther stopped clicking.

It only took ten seconds — ten seconds and a scream — to make Esther nearly drop the phone.


	6. Amethyst - 0101

_They rose together, into the dazzling light, away from Earth and the field and everything that Amethyst knew._

.

At some point or another, Amethyst's lasso lost traction on the robot's smooth body and she let go — but by that point it didn't matter.

She found herself falling and panicked, but too soon her body slammed into a slick unforgiving floor and the roar of the ship reduced to an ambient hum after a metallic _slam._ Also, she could open her eyes without squinting. Dazed and with a very sore frontside, she pushed herself off the ground and took in her surroundings. The curving green walls, the cold white floors, the twisty bubbling ceiling pipes, the multiple marble robots surrounding her. It smelled like a chemistry classroom. There was an artificial type of cold, like the place had the capacity for being warm, but someone had just wanted to make everyone else uncomfortable and cranked down the AC.

Amethyst's hand drifted almost instinctively to the phone in her pocket. "What Ronaldo wouldn't give to see this," she murmured. Somehow, she still had a connection, though she suspected she wouldn't for long.

She opened Snapchat. "I was right," she half-grinned, "Look at this. Look at this place."

Holding the phone in front of her, she let the video take in everything over her shoulder. She knew there were probably better things for her to be doing than recording herself inside a UFO, but she didn't care. What a story _this_ would be. Maybe Pearl and Garnet would see it too and know that she was right. It wasn't like this stuff could be made up either; the robots were too pretty to be fake, those bubbling tubes were totally legit, there was no way for her to open that door by herself, the robotic green bug looked pretty realistic too —

Amethyst screamed. So did the bug.

One might think that if she were really scared, she wouldn't have tapped the Add To Story button before whirling around, but this is incorrect. In that half-second, Amethyst decided that she'd rather have a half-second with her back to the bug than to face it immediately and risk not telling the world of her imminent doom. So she first sent her video, grabbed her rope second, and third spun around before the bug finished screaming.

"What the hell are YOU?" Amethyst demanded.

The...thing — now that she focused on it — was only barely humanoid, about a foot taller than her, but size was one of the few things it had in common with a person. For one, it was lime green. Green...carapaced, if she had to guess, having segments down its neck and prominent ridges under the fabric of its viridian leotard. For two, its blond hair was ridiculous, defying gravity in three different directions. For three, it had a jewel on its forehead. For four, the lower parts of all four limbs were noticeably disproportionate tubes of shining metal. Its fingers floated a few inches underneath the black palms, splayed in clear surprise.

Surprise to match the bug's face, the wide eyes and fanged mouth hanging open.

It was the first to move, lifting one disembodied finger to the side of its visor and clicking out a fragment of language lost to Amethyst. Then it was speaking in an almost electronic voice, nasally and high and close enough to female, but like a mockery.

"...Lock translation preset throughout ship," it only managed to say before Amethyst whirled her lasso above her head, fastened the cyborg's arms to its waist, and yanked the thing towards her. It tripped over its bulky feet and landed face first, in the perfect place for Amethyst to pull it closer, roll the rope around its struggling body a few times more, and place her foot squarely on the thing's chest.

"Ah, great, so the bug speaks English," she smiled languidly. Then she went back to scowling. "Now tell me. Where've you put my brother?"

The thing thrashed under her foot, but it was like holding down a feisty infant. No real power, though the metal arms were threatening. "I'll never tell you — you clod!"

Clod? Amethyst supposed this was a viable insult, but the fact that someone would bring a word out of retirement just to insult her...kinda did sting. "Hey, uh, I don't appreciate being called a clod, you clo — "

"Enough talk! You have no power over me, human female," the thing had the smuggest little grin and a voice like a fourth grade boy on XBox Live. It jerked once more against Amethyst's foot and failed. "For you are standing unawares in the heart of my ship, the latest in Homeworld technology! I can have you and your so-called 'brother' erased from existence before you can speak!"

Amethyst glanced around, noticed that the round robots weren't moving, and that the ship was still humming ambiently. "Oh really?"

"Yes!" it chuckled, as if pleased. "However, I will consider a truce if you unfasten your lengthy pliable weapon — it'd be a shame to destroy such a fine specimen as yourself."

"Fine specimen, huh," Amethyst murmured, half to herself, and leaned down further. Her full weight was on the alien now and it gasped from the pressure, its eyes darting between hers.

"Is your species hard of hearing? I said, remove the offending gravity connecter from my...ah..."

Amethyst felt like she could probably get on a spiel about "gravity connector" later, but she had this thing practically under her control by now and was on a roll with something else. "How about I don't, and you tell me where the other human is. 'Cuz I'm gonna find him even without you."

She slipped into the role like she did her makeup, with a natural ease, with a controlled blinking of her lids and a subtle shift in position. Her foot gave way to her knee, pressing against the alien's torso; her free hand moved up to its hair and pulled its head back against the floor. The alien's last "ah" drew out in a breath and wide, evasive eyes, so obviously it was working, and Amethyst smiled.

"You can make it easier for yourself, you just gotta ask."

Ten minutes later, Amethyst ran out of the tractor beam bay cackling to herself and with her roll of duct tape fifteen feet shorter. The bug's howling echoed down the halls, peppered with excessive "clod"s and "I'm reporting this!" until Amethyst was far enough away that the nasally voice was muffled by the ship.

"Not for a while, you won't," Amethyst snickered, and just to annoy the bug, she grabbed a passing small marble and began to tape it to the wall.


	7. Amethyst - 0110

Though Amethyst tried to be an optimist, she reasoned that she probably didn't have forever.

Her "plan" hinged on three things: that the ship wasn't spiraling through light speed, that her industrial-grade duct tape would hold the green bug, and that it didn't have friends. Thankfully, other than smaller marble robots about the size of volleyballs, Amethyst saw nothing until she reached the bridge, the place from where the ship was piloted.

Yes, Amethyst had seen enough Star Wars to know it was called a bridge. It didn't open for her until she got mad and hit the panel with her baseball bat, but that meant it didn't close again, and also an alarm started blaring through the ship. Oops. Since no one came rushing at her with laser guns, she took this as her cue and stepped into the vacant room.

The panoramic view told her that, thankfully, no one was hurtling through light speed. According to the dashboard, the ship was on autopilot, had just cleared the atmosphere, and traveling at 4.13 x 10^11 magnatevvs per chronum, whatever that meant — it looked like a big number but the stars in the windows didn't seem to be moving much.

Gingerly, Amethyst pulled out the high-backed chair (was it _floating?_ Now THAT was cool) and sat down at the dash. Her first naive thought had been that it couldn't be different from driving, but there were neither steering wheels nor pedals in sight. The holographic dash was scary and kinda hot. When she tried to touch it, a burning shock repelled her hand.

"Gah! Hot Belgian waffles!" she yelled, and then sat straight as realization dawned. "Wait...I'm alone. I can swear for real!"

Hand still stinging, she took a deep breath and let out: "SON OF A — "

The dashboard began to ring.

It was a monotoned, slightly-out-of-tune D flat, so literally the most annoying ringtone anyone could have possibly picked, and it was accompanied by a bright yellow square sliding up from the dashboard reading _TRANSMISSION FROM JASPER 3B5L-5TZ._ Whoever that was. Amethyst didn't really care to learn, especially since if they were trying to contact this ship, they'd probably not like that she'd hijacked it and tied its pilot in duct tape.

Unfortunately after five rings the caller, presumably someone named Jasper, decided that they were going to open the transmission anyway, and Amethyst found herself staring at a hybrid between a Viking lady and a Bengal tiger. Along with a mane of blond hair rivaling Amethyst's own, wispy fur curled on the sides of Jasper's tough jaw, contrasting with the dark red slashes across her face. There was a jewel in place of her nose — did _everyone_ here have jewels on them?

Amethyst didn't realize she'd frozen until Jasper leaned forward, the camera magnifying her beastlike face to strange proportions as she examined the girl. _"What do you think YOU'RE doing in a peridot's seat? Identify yourself, runt."_

"Um." Amethyst started actually getting afraid now; she had to think fast. "Ummm...Amethyst 1ABC-321 at your, uh, service. Sir. Ma'am. Uh."

It'd been a shot in the dark, but with Jasper and now Peridot (she assumed that was the twitchy green bug) there did seem to be a pattern here of aliens being named after gemstones. For once she was grateful for her weird name.

Jasper's cat-pupiled eyes narrowed. _"You, an escort? What, can defectives not wear proper uniforms? Are those alarms? Where's the pilot? Who's your diamond, anyway?"_

The first two questions stung in a weird phantom way, the third Amethyst would ignore, the last she couldn't decipher, the second to last could be easily BS-ed. "The pilot," she said slowly, trying to buy herself time to think, "The pilot for the ship. The pilot chosen especially to fly the ship. The ship's pilot."

 _"The PERIDOT,"_ snapped Jasper, clearly out of patience. _"Tell me where she is or I'll have you reported."_

"She's fixing a thing in the engine, right!" Amethyst grinned as she found a good lie. "That's the alarms. And she sent me up here to make sure we don't crash into. Uh. Space stuff."

 _"Put me on a remote line with her."_

"Ah…" Amethyst hesitated, then leaned over the side of the chair out of sight of the floaty screen. Time to jump ship. "Sorry dude, no can do! There's, ah — ." She put her hand over her mouth and started making scratchy noises as she reached for her backpack. "The connection is bad! We're going through a — " more scratchy static noises " — meteor shower! I gotta go sorry bye!"

Jasper only managed _"You insolent brat, what — "_ before Amethyst resurfaced with her dented baseball bat and brought it down on the dashboard. Fortunately, dashboards weren't made of the same stuff as marble robots.

"I shoulda done that forever ago," she muttered and fanned herself with her hat. The left side of the dash was now a sparking, smoking wreck. On the other side, random error windows began popping up. _Threat detected. Power source 3C offline. Connection lost with hyperdrive modulator. Locator beacon disabled. External transmitter unavailable. System diagnostic check activating 30...29...28…_

 _Yikes_ , Amethyst thought, and decided to go.

No answers would be found here, so it was back to hall running. The alarms had a new edge to them after she'd destroyed the dashboard, and from very far away she could hear the bug pilot, Peridot, shrieking. Homegirl just got what she deserved, having stolen away Amethyst's little bro. Still, Amethyst felt a little bad, especially as the alarms gave way to a metallic clanking and a paged message over the ship's loudspeakers.

" _To the human female, if you are not still hard of hearing: I demand you return to my location to unfasten these bonds AT ONCE! I repeat, you will desist your siege or — "_

— Here was a very loud thud, and when Peridot's voice came back, it was muffled and sounded distinctly of someone who has just tripped over their own tied gravity connectors.

Amethyst winced at the thud, but realized something too. By proclaiming her presence throughout the ship, Peridot might have just let Steven know she was here. She began to yell his name, no longer worried about subtlety. Once she thought for sure she had him, in a corridor labeled Prison Block, but each of the yellow-screened cells was empty.

Finally she said his name and heard a reply.

"Amethyst?!" It came unsure at first and muffled behind a door, but when Amethyst skidded to a stop in front of it, the voice came louder. "Amethyst!"

"I'm here, bud!" she called in the direction of the door she thought he was in. Thick, diamond-esque just like the door to the bridge. The door that hadn't held a candle to her baseball bat, she smirked. "Just stand back, I'm gonna try opening it by force, then we can go home, okay?"

She expected agreement, had even raised her baseball bat above the door's control panel, but then Steven cried out again. "Wait! We...I can't leave. Not yet."

Confused, Amethyst lowered the bat. "What?"

There was a hesitation, and from inside his prison, she heard Steven take a deep, shaky breath in. "Peridot said something about...her scanners picking up Rose Quartz, and that's how she found me," he said just too fast. "Amethyst — she knows my mom!"

* * *

 **First thing: I procrastinated in studio and drew Peridot from this story ( post/143552979390)**

 **While it's on my mind, I'd like to address Petri Dish here, because I know a lot of you follow that too. The issue is I can only write so much in a week and the hiatus from Petri Dish was intended to get ahead in it; alas, I have hardly half of chapter 12 and a plot hole involving driving rules. I do not intend to infringe on my promise of a May 6 update, however, if I'm to do so, I will have to pause this story after the next two chapters. For me, two days for 1,000 words is an extremely tight turnaround time, one that I doubt I'll be able to keep up when also managing 5,000 words in a week, so I propose an alternative schedule.**

 **I'm not sure what this alternative schedule will be. Perhaps we continue Petri Dish Fridays, except making them Petri Dish Every Other Fridays, and the off weeks will be At Harbor weeks (during which I plan to post 3-4 chapters each). With this plan, I predict that this story — which has been written COMPLETELY off the fly, with minimal plotting, hence foreshadowing that I've really just pulled out of my ass — will be finished fairly quickly.**

 **Leave me your thoughts, guys! Sorry the A/N is longer than the chapter. :)  
**


	8. Amethyst - 0111

Not long later, a not very enthusiastic Amethyst led Steven to the bridge and helped him into the floaty green chair.

"I can touch the technology," he explained, scooting closer to what remained of the dashboard. "It just feels weird. Like I was in those prison cells with the ray doors but I could just walk right through them, so that's why Peridot put me in the closet instead. Okay, I think I just have to do this…"

Frowning, Steven stuck both hands into the light of the dashboard, shivered as if cold, and looked up with blue pixels flashing across his eyes. "Whooooaaaa! Okay, so I just gotta find the...the intercom...thingy. Here!"

Amethyst glanced around as nothing happened.

"Oh, whoops," Steven laughed, and shifted his hand to a blue circle in the dashboard. "Maybe if I press — ! "

A loud beep echoed around the corridors outside the bridge, and when Steven spoke, his voice was magnified and swept into the hallways as well. "Testing, one two one two. Peridot, this is Steven, and we need to talk. Please come to the…"

"The bridge," Amethyst supplied.

"The bridge. Thanks!"

A long time later, a not very enthusiastic Peridot waddled through the bridge door and glared murderously at Amethyst and Steven. To Amethyst's delight, the tape had held wonderfully, binding the cyborg bug (hehe, cybug) all along her metallic legs, with a single long piece binding her arms and body from her waist up to her shoulders. Amethyst had even taped her five floaty claws into cute little bundles, but those had escaped by now. It didn't take long, however, for the alien's face to turn from angry to horrified as she set eyes on the still-smoking dashboard.

"My control panel!" she yelped, stumbling over her own feet in her rush. "What — what happened to my control panel?!"

"I didn't feel like talking to Jasper, that's what," Amethyst shrugged. She'd originally struggled not to laugh as Peridot waddled penguin-style with her ankles fastened together, but now the bug looked actually distressed and it kind of worried her. Peridot stared hapless at the mess.

"This panel was the one effective connection to the hyperdrive," she whispered.

Suddenly, she whirled to Amethyst and Steven, her eyes furious and a lock of her hair popping free of the polyhedron to fall over her eyes.

"You clods don't know what you've just done! You've effectively stabilized us in your planet's gravitational field until your organic bodies decay and I collapse from stress! Thank you, Steven and the human female, you've doomed this ship!"

"Hey, uh, my name isn't 'the human female'," Amethyst interrupted, leaning against the pilot's chair, "it's Amethyst, and I'm NOT one of your gem weirdos. And dooming stuff is what I do."

"Look, we're really sorry," Steven cut in. "Amethyst was just trying to help, because she really cares about me and she thought you were going to hurt me. I'm sure she didn't mean to break your ship."

"Yeah I did."

"But," continued the boy, "maybe you can fix it! You're really good at that. It's gonna be alright. But before you do that we just want to talk to you about why you took me."

Peridot's eyes narrowed. She had pupils like a cat, little vertical slits behind her shiny visor. "I have already explained my motives."

"Just to me, Amethyst doesn't know and I think it might make her less mad and suspicious of you when she hears it. Then you can fix your ship."

Peridot didn't respond and turned her back, or at least, did whatever she could while bound neck to toe.

"Pretty please?" added Steven. Finally, Peridot glanced over her shoulder.

"Ugh. Fine."

To give them peace and quiet during the account, Amethyst untaped Peridot's wrists so she could deactivate the awful alarms, but immediately retaped them after and nudged the alien invader to the ground — just to drive home that they were still above her. "So," she drawled, "about Rose."

This was, she had come to know, a weighty request. She herself had hardly known Rose. Amethyst had been just three years old when she had run away from her orphanage and found by the ethereal woman, meaning that she remembered little but the feeling — initially, the primal fear and rebellion, then the overwhelming gratitude that had led to tears and falling asleep in the woman's arms. Amethyst remembered a smell like flowers, and of a tear that fell on her scabbed knee, and a shimmering jewel on her round stomach.

Less than six months after Amethyst had met her, Rose had disappeared and a speechless Greg Universe had shown up on their doorstep holding a baby boy.

Amethyst knew little else. Pearl and Garnet had never wanted to speak of Rose besides in reverent whispers and always dodged the questions that came up of her. Peridot could pull a fake story from her ass and neither Amethyst nor Steven would know better, so it was good that Amethyst had already donned the facade of the tough girl. Maybe a scared bug was less likely to lie. It made her feel bad just a little, but it had to be done. For emphasis, she smacked her baseball bat against the palm of her other hand. Peridot sat up straighter.

"Before you get any ideas," the alien snapped back, "my mission originally had nothing to do with the fugitive Rose Quartz. I was to survey this star system for potential future acquisition, to gather samples of naturally-occurring compounds, and acquire up to eight members of the dominant species to update our information on this system. Just in and out, and I would move on to my next assignment before your moon completed a cycle."

Amethyst rested her bat on her shoulder. "So what does this have to do with Rose?"

"I am getting to that! As if your lifespans were THAT short. Rose Quartz Facet 1S2B, Cut 7A1 has been an enemy of the state since the fall of the illustrious Pink Diamond, whose mourned death it is suspected she caused. A little over a standard year ago, she stole a ship and vanished into uncharted space. As a result all Homeworld ships have been outfitted with trackers that can identify the unique signature of a Rose Quartz's gem, and if she cannot provide correct identification, the pilot of the ship is required to notify Homeworld and take her into custody.

"As I entered the atmosphere of your planet, I picked up a signal from the tracker and traced it to the Steven's residence. I first contacted Jasper, substitute head of security in my branch, regarding the matter and she instructed me to collect the source of the signal and abandon my mission. I next consulted with my manager, however, she instructed me to continue my mission if Rose Quartz could be contained."

"But it was just me," Steven shrugged, swinging his bare feet back and forth from the pilot's chair.

"Affirmative," continued Peridot, "though he is still of some interest, as he appears to be some type of hybrid whose skillset and properties are yet unknown. As such I had resolved to take him back to Homeworld with my other collected data. But then you came and broke my ship and terrorized my robonoids and — "

"Wait a sec, _I_ terrorized _them?_ I thought that big one was gonna kill me!" Amethyst interrupted. "I'm _still_ terrified!"

Peridot rolled her eyes — apparently some expressions translated between star systems. "Oh please. I do not have permission to harm you outside of collateral damage."

This was getting out of hand. "Whatever," Amethyst replied with a forced edge, "it's still freaky. I, for one, call bull. Rose wasn't ah — an evil alien pirate, she was just some nice lady in love with the car wash guy! This, all of this, is just insane, how do I know you don't have, like, some mind reading device that's letting you make up a story that I'll believe? Cuz I don't."

"I believe her," said Steven. He looked down at his stomach.

Amethyst had been ready to launch a new rant. It had been burning in her mouth, teetering on the tip of her tongue even, until Steven lifted his yellow pajama shirt and touched the shining gemstone there — and suddenly her thoughts were lost. He was right. Steven would know before her what "freaky" was; he had occasionally been made fun at in school for that gem, for his weight, for his empathy, for his femininity, for still looking eight years old while the rest of his classmates grew beards. All of which had come from his too-perfect mom.

Amethyst had only known Rose for a short time, but Pearl often whispered that Steven _was_ Rose, that maybe sometimes she could see the world through his eyes. There was something just so _beautiful_ about Steven, and how this had all circled back to the stars because of him, that Amethyst had to lower her weapon and surrender.

She exhaled, long and slow.

"Fiiiiiine. So she's an alien, you're half, she's wanting her ship fixed, and you're wanting to give her a chance because she knows people who know your mom. Can we survive on this thing for a while, at least?" — turning to Peridot, who blinked and jerked her head as if she'd been looking at something incriminating.

" _I_ can last indefinitely. _You_ have approximately twelve Earth days."

"And you can fix the ship before then? Just, like, anything needed to get me and Steven back to Earth?"

Peridot scowled at the emphasis on _back to Earth,_ which had been Amethyst's intention. The green pilot had little fangs that showed when she pulled back her lips. "...Yes, but that requires a full range of motion."

Lazily, Amethyst flicked her bat down and rested the end on Peridot's knees, which were pressed up against her chest. Amethyst looked her down, then up, and ended on her eyes.

"Well, that's unfortunate for both of us," she smirked. She set the bat down and reached for the rope again.

* * *

 **Sorry if this chapter seems rushed or choppy — I lost the file and when I got it back all my edits were gone, and by then I realized I was also pushing the standard length too. I'm too used to 5,000 word chapters.  
**

 **This will be the last update until I can string together a reasonable compromise between this and Petri Dish, but either way, you will get Amedot in a timely manner. I'm guessing that I'll update Petri Dish this Friday, continue this story on Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday, and take a week off for Petri Dish again. Or something.**


	9. Officer - 01000

"I can't believe nobody in the police department knows how screen recorders work," Elijah Ben-David chuckled as he and Esther walked out of the building, their steps hollow and alone in the night. Amethyst's Snapchat story now rested safely in the department computer system. Esther glanced fondly down at her tiny scrap of a husband, holding his clunky laptop bag in one pale hand and her dark hand in the other.

"That's why I married a nerd," she responded and gave him a playful nudge. Not too hard, though. At five feet tall and a hundred twenty pounds dripping wet, Eli was very susceptible to being knocked over by his six-foot-three wife.

"I love you too, angel," he said, and she knew he meant it as he circled around the car to open the door for her — just so he could peck her cheek as she climbed in.

Esther could almost feel the questions bubbling on his lips from the second he kissed her. He knew as well as she did the rules of confidentiality in these cases. But he _had_ just seen the whole Snapchat video. "You want to ask what that thing was," she said as soon as Eli started up the car.

"YES I DO, what's going on, was that supposed to be a costume? Where's — is that supposed to be the inside of a UFO? Is this _serious?!"_ burst Eli. He really was a nerd.

"You know as much as I do," Esther told him. "Kid went missing, his older sister said she saw aliens take him, she sets up a fake crop circle in some field, then goes missing at around midnight and that's on her social media."

"Is it legit, that's the question."

"Psh. Don't ask me, you saw it yourself. What do you think?"

"Well, I _want_ to think it's legit," Eli shrugged, "but kids do some crazy stuff for attention. Then again…"

He hesitated, pushed his glasses up his nose, and continued.

"The set, or the inside of the ship, whatever it was, it was pretty nice. Hydrotechnics and everything on the pipes, and those marble things wouldn't just move for no reason, completely on their own. And that alien thing...I mean, costume's possible, or CGI, but what kind of person can make a costume like that? Its body was all off. You could make plates for that carapace-sort of skin, but you'd have to basically be boneless in order to fit those proportions. It's too natural to be a costume."

"You said something about CGI."

"Possible but not likely. This is, what, a seventeen-year-old girl with an iPhone?"

"She has friends who could help her," Esther pointed out.

"How many?"

Four and around five thousand Tumblr followers, if the reports were right, but they all seemed pretty serious about only helping Amethyst make the crop circle. "I'm not at liberty to say. Case confidentiality, Eli."

"Was there a white border around that Snapchat video?"

Esther frowned. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"There wasn't," Eli answered his own question, clearly excited, "which means that the video was taken live from the Snapchat app, not imported from another source — as you'd HAVE to if it was CGI. The video is raw, taken at the moment that happened, she didn't even use a filter. Like she _wouldn't_ if there was a real, foreign threat behind her!"

"I don't know why you became a geneticist when you jump to faster conclusions than our interns."

He stuck her tongue out at her. "Ugh, fine. Just...think about it, Esther."

She smiled dryly. "That's kinda the point of working through a case, you know."

"But... _aliens_ , Esther."

"Or a teen playing a prank."

"Still! You know how many nerds would sell their life's belongings to get this opportunity?"

"You."

"Yes! Yes, me! I would!" They stopped at a red light and Eli waved his hands to emphasize his point. "Look. You know when we were kids, we'd lay in the grass and look at the stars?"

"And you'd recite all the opening crawls for every Star Wars movie made."

"Star Wars, Episode IV, _A New Hope,"_ said Eli from memory. "It is a period of civil war. Rebel spaceships, striking from a hidden base, have won their first victory against the evil Galactic Empire."

"Can't believe you still remember it."

"I remember everything, Esther. Oh, finally got a call back from Olive, you have to pick up Avi and Syl when you get Dea on Thursday."

Right. Esther sighed. "And where will you be?"

"Screening for osteoporosis. I hate being old."

"I bet it's 'cause you haven't exercised since high school gym class."

Eli was silent as he considered this. The red light turned green, he accelerated, and then responded, "That really stung."

Esther just smirked. The car went quiet, familiarly so, and then Eli inhaled.

"The first kid who went missing. He had a jewel on his stomach."

"Yeah. Not even his family knows what's up with that. Why?"

By then, they had pulled up to their quiet house, shadowed in the overgrown oak that stretched over their cracked driveway. Eli parked and looked at Esther, his glasses glinting in the moonlight, his eyes wide.

"The alien," he exhaled, "had a jewel on its head."

.

A/N (on desktop site on an iphone so i cant bold anything)

K so my chapters to this are getting gradually longer, but that's not entirely my fault, i got writer's block and all i could do was bash it out with dialogue bt my OCssss

if you haven't noticed, YES this is Eli Ben-David from the fictional TV show Eli and the Weirdos in petri dish

speaking of petri dish yes that is still priority i just somehow finished this idk how

IF YOU WANT ME TO CONTINUE THIS please give me some predictions as to what you think is going to happen because i have about 4% of it planned and 3/4ths of that is hot alien-on-human makeout sessions so yeeeeeeaaaaaaaah please give me thoughts. next chapter is planned to be in peridot's POV jsyk

k talk to me


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